Waiting Room

Trapped within grey walls,
randomly positioned, varied shapes
twist and recoil
with solo screeches and complaints,
every now and then, glancing at
a cactus plant and a side table of dated journals,
a sorry arsenal against tedium.

Someone must have lied: “Life can be mended.”
For now, it is ended here,
while we wait to go on stage,
as if in the cage before an execution at
San Quentin.

A tall nurse, her bosom swaying, opens the door ajar:
“Called on an early emergency, the doctor’s
running late. If you can’t wait with ease,
re-schedule please.”

“This is the only day I can take off,”
a man with sallow skin and cracked lips
replies, his eyes fixed on the floor,
for he’s not a breast-man but
into twins of a lower altitude.
A while ago, he was staring at
the flip-flops of the young beauty flexing
her feet with pink-skinned soles
and broad, pedicured nails.

No one leaves,
not even the woman, sabotaged
by cosmetics, who whined before
while she hogged a corner chair.

During the sign-in, we were glued to
an imaginary line
drawn at the nurses’ station
with sliding glass window, left open,
through which secretaries’ voices leak,
ordering lunch from Friendly’s next door.
“Sandwich, chicken salad, soup.
Get the cajun, never mind fish,
it’s a loser’s dish.”
And we wonder when
the first sentence will be served
on their brittle plate.